1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a protective waistcoat which comprises a front section on the front side of a person wearing the waistcoat and a back section on the back side of said person, straps for connecting the two sections, and a number of armour cover parts forming the sections.
Personnel within, for example, the police and the army and also, for example, body guards and doormen can, in certain circumstances find themselves in dangerous situations where they risk being attacked by small arms such as revolvers and small machine guns or by pointed objects such as knives or awls.
When a person in such a situation is wearing a protective waistcoat, the person will, to a great extent, be secured against injury or even death by the attack.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Protective waistcoats have normally been made of materials that are resistant to penetration by projectiles fired from small arms. Some waistcoats have also been made of materials that are resistant to penetration by both a projectile and a pointed object such as a knife or an awl.
The material has conventionally been formed as plates that have been rather stiff and heavy to provide the person wearing the waistcoat the desired degree of protection.
While the known protective waistcoats made of such stiff and heavy armour plates could offer the wearer the desired degree of protection against attacks of the above named type, the problem of comfort and the impediments to mobility have been compromised.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,060,314 discloses a protective waistcoat comprising left and right combined front and side panels which are secured together by fastening means. U.S. Pat. No. 5,903,920 discloses a protective waistcoat made of various layers of woven fibres incorporating a net which is flexibly fixed relative to said layers.
The protective waistcoat of this invention, includes a front section and a back section wherein the front section comprises at least one upper plate-formed armour cover part for substantially covering the chest region of a person wearing the waistcoat, at least one lower plate-formed armour cover part for substantially covering the abdominal region of the person, and at least some of said armour cover parts are arranged in partly overlapping relationship to each other.
It is important that the various cover parts are arranged to partly overlap adjacent armour cover parts such that there are no openings that would allow a bullet or a knife or awl to pass through and hit the body of a wearer of the waistcoat.